


Spine

by figuline



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-17
Updated: 2011-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figuline/pseuds/figuline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are in love with John Watson. You are in love with waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> for bedamn, for the qldfloodauction.

You love John Watson.

You want to cut him open, and sew him up, and pull out the stitches with your teeth. You want to tattoo your spine over his so a part of you will be with him forever. You want to feel the heat of his skin when you brush by him and not say sorry, you want to touch him in the dark when you can't see anything, can't feel anything but everything, you want everything.

You want to wait for him to make the first move. So you do.

You wait until three o'clock in the morning, case solved hours ago, but you continue to pore over magazine-cut letters, newspaper smooth, and you wait, standing, twisting until your bones pop, stretching the fabric of your purple shirt, your vertebrae aligning, five cracks, all at once. You can almost hear John flinch.

Don't do that, he says, voice muffled by the newspaper he's taken to reading whilst you give yourself paper cuts, and you can catch glimpses of his skin through the neat holes you cut if you're patient enough to wait until he turns the page (and you always are).

You are empty, hollowed out inside, stomach clean, and it tastes like freedom, like nothing at all. Your limbs are weightless, and you trail your fingers along the edge of John's paper, catching your skin on straight lines, as you walk by.

Tea? You ask, and scratch your side idly, wondering how long it would take to scratch to the bone. You never do anything without purpose.

Yes, John says, and leans his head back against the chair, rolling his neck. You should probably take pity on him, tell him you texted Lestrade ages ago, under the table against your leg, and you didn't even have to look. You want it to stay like this, three o'clock in the morning, the air cold and meaningless, your body long given up telling you to sleep, the earth its furthest away from the sun, John closest to you.

Your body is rebelling, almost, your body is rebelling by wanting things, by wanting tea, by wanting food, by wanting John, and you haven't wanked this much since you were fourteen, when your body started betraying you, and you did it as penance, because you'd obviously done something wrong, and now it's exactly the same. You don't know what it's like, to want something, to want someone, because you either got it or you made yourself not want it, and you can't do both, and you can't do either because John has to make the first move because you'll never know for sure if he reciprocates, not if he makes the first move, not even after.

You know what his bones look like, because you've stopped him coming out of the shower to ask his opinion when you didn't need it, and watched the colour of his skin turn back to normal, because there couldn't have been that much hot water in Afghanistan (and there isn't that much in the flat, but you don't mind), and watch the shift of his skin over his skeleton, and even though his bones don't stick out like yours do, because he is a warrior and you are a freak, you could see where they were, see his bones and their names in your mind like a label, bones covered by skin, and skin by towel and when you finished your train of thought, you couldn't remember a word you'd said. Your brain had deleted the conversation, making room, making room for the colour of John's damn hair and you don't know what to think because there's no room left.

You are waiting for John, and you will wait for him in the flat, in the narrow stairs, not made for two people to pass, awkward, brushing up against one another, and you will wait at crime scenes, at morgues, in alleys and restaurants, and you will wait for him to touch you, just once, with any sort of meaning, (and for the meaningless ones too, for him to push you out of the way of knives, of bullets, and of fists, so you can feel the unbelievable rate of his pulse, because this is a man who loves violence, and you are the man that can give it to him, that will) waiting for that first touch, the first one with intent, with motive, waiting for the first time he kisses you, the first time – the first and you can't imagine it so you do nothing but, waiting for the first time he pushes into you, the first time he touches your cock, leans into the space between you and him, gets too close, presses his skin against yours, sweats against you, the first time his voice cracks when he says your name, almost in agony.

You want to wait.

So you do.


End file.
